Uganda Elites' fear-mongering discourses against Kyagulanyi erodes our democratic rights

FEARMONGERING

The Uganda elites have been most unfair to Hon. Kyagulanyi since he emerged as a firebrand opposition leader. They have treated Kyagulanyi condescendingly without letting up. Kyagulanyi, however, has continuously manifested himself in the total opposite of those who frame him as an elusive object of fear. The groups most vicious in their onslaught are even embedded within the enterprise opposition.

In politics, we understand the role of paid propaganda as part of the discourse production to sustain the status quo. A discourse is usually evidence-driven views, both textual and discursive that prevails in society as part of the dominant idea. These are transmitted either consciously or unconsciously to the masses to shape perspectives and decision-making in favour of those who produce it – those in power.

In the Ugandan context, “innuendo and rumours” have “replaced evidence-based” in as much as violence and impunity have replaced due process in laws. The rumours and innuendos gain legitimacy through certain individuals with power. Their sources of power could be patriarchy, crooked professionalism and experience, wealth and marital polyandrous status drawn from having regime ties and privileges.

Over time, the core arguments levelled against People Power Movement have varied and some, strange; yet unchallenged.

That Kyagulanyi’s group draws mainly from low life rascals, the “unwashed” of slums and are to be feared – as if Kyagulanyi produces slum dwellers.

Another group claimed that Kyagulanyi is violent, unpredictable and capable of derailing the rented elite conveniences under the repression – these hate to hear sentiments such as freedom or liberation.

Other groups argue that opposing Museveni’s tyranny and draconian laws equate to triggering a war – these pessimists do not realize that Hon. Kyagulanyi does not command an army or speak the language of violence.

Then there are the “Obama birthers” equivalent among desktop academics - these claim that Hon. Kyagulanyi is not academically sophisticated or experienced to lead Uganda - such groups fail to produce desktop evidence showing that high-level academics have delivered transformational corruption-free leadership anywhere in African since independence.

The non-Baganda groups argue that the People Power Movement, and now the National Unity Platform Party is a Ganda-centric ethnic consciousness whose central leadership is exclusive and hostile to non-Baganda – this group sits by and does nothing to probe up their own ethnic consciousness against misrule.

However, the most prominent of the siasa discourse emanates from the sensational propagandist, Mr Andrew Mwenda – that people power is a group of radical intolerant extremists capable of lynching anyone with whom they are disagreeable – this line disregards the main source of violence as Mr. Museveni, whose regime “crushes” any forms of organized opposition.

Of course, all of these claims are contrived and lack both substance and good intentions. Time has decomposed some of them with the failing the reputation of their proponents such as Mwenda.

Absolutely, it is not my place to speak for PPM or Mr. Kyagulanyi. However, as a righteous citizen of Uganda, it is important for me to redirect the masses away from the petty politics of fear and defending rented convenience.

I know that Mr. Museveni and group came to power with a one-way ticket and will do anything to retire in power.  Thus, exposing Uganda’s elite pretensions in this repressive environment can alleviate the fear levels.

Uganda is one of the many African countries where unconscionable elderly statemen are in charge of a very young population. These fellows are far more concerned with the hereafter than us who should concern ourselves about our future.

In generating and sustaining fear-mongering propaganda against Hon. Kyagulanyi, we collectively violated our own civic rights as citizens of Uganda with contempt and narrow the democratic space.

In sum, we are consciously digging our graves wider and deeper beneath the Museveni’s decades-long entrenched dictatorship by embracing fearmongering discourses.

END.

Of Gulu City's Illicit trades, Part 2

ILLICIT TRADES

In the first part about Gulu dames, I decried the Gulu elites’ bashing of prostitution as a viable economy. I recognized that prostitution is a blight in our societal conscience. I took exception of child prostitution and attempted to explain with many difficulties, the genesis of child prostitution as the total

breakdown of our social safety nets. Most of these maladies of society are exacerbated in the

post-conflict Acholi. 

I also paled off any pretense that Acholi that we know now, is as conservative, morally, as the Acholi we knew before the war. In this section, I guide my readers to what we should do. I start by enumerating the inevitability of societal evolution.

Far from Gulu, the other worlds have evolved spectacularly within the liberalised economic doctrine.

They have developed liberal markets where every item that money can buy, are sold. With such a

market, many of our vulnerable persons become commodities. Children become commodities,

not just for sex, but for labour, organs, research, trafficking, objects of luscious fetish, and so on.

A researcher, Kevin Bales concluded that these humans – without a proper and firm foundation

in a protective society, become disposable human beings. The children are used and recycled and

sometimes disposed of in mass graves.

An old report by the International Organization of Migration (IOM) revealed that children and

young women from East Africa, including Uganda, are being enticed by a mere plate of cooked

food and trafficked into the global line of human sex trafficking. These are serious concerns that

we should not turn into our past time gossip subjects. 

Clarity

I am not saying that prostitution is good. I am saying that it is despicable. Prostitution is a sign of

societal failures to provide equal opportunity for all. I am reiterating that prostitution is our

reality of a failed society. I am saying that by spending time lambasting the people who earn a

living as prostitutes, maybe someone should begin to understand them beyond their trade or that

identity – to look at them as daughters, parents, and citizens of value in a perverted society. 

Had it not been for COVID-19, and had it not been for the hunger associated with the quarantine

to force these women to place our leaders at “pussy point” as Bosmic Otim said, very few people

could have known that prostitution is marketable in Gulu. We now know that the demand for

prostitutes is high. We also know now that the most profitable consumers are Gulu local leaders.

A condition must exist for an event to emerge.

I am saying that these women lacked, and still lack opportunities for alternative income-

generating activities. , I am certain that we could do more for them as a society.– We could

initiate public policies that will provide a safety net for the children, make a demand for

prostitution unsavory and retrain these women into productive citizens.

Lastly, the colorful language we employ in describing prostitution is simply uncouth, violent,

dismissive, and barbaric. These people are earning a living and partaking in a sensitive sector of

the pleasure economy. They should be legalized, and their trade legitimized as work, licensed,

and therefore taxed. The taxes could be levied from designated operation chambers – brothels,

bars, stages, or hotels. 

As such, the women will no longer be called prostitutes, but dignified Sex Workers with rights

and respect like all traders and workers. This group, however, becomes of the essence for public

health, thus the necessity for licensure. Society must also be careful to discern the prostitutes

from the prostituted and sex workers. This can help in identifying the Pimps, Johns, and Madams

early on. Prostitutes do it voluntarily, independently, and are perverse. The prostituted are forced,

exploited, and often mistreated – children and disempowered rural women. The sex workers

have more rights and recognition in society because of their legal status. They could even have a

Union. It is hard to find a city in the world that has settled the issue of sex-workers, prostitution and prostituted decisively. One thing we must safeguard, however, is our people from

exploitation, human trafficking, and cruel treatment. The Bishops are allowed to disagree with

me!

End.

Evaluate the role of Political Parties in Uganda's democracy

PARTY POLITICS

I read Norbert Mao’s piece titled “Political Parties are key in democracy” in the Daily Monitor of Aug 2, 2020, that reminds us of the relevance of political parties in a pluralist democracy. Mao observes that political parties galvanizing the socio-political spheres in a polity through enforcing a set of core beliefs.

In adjoining this discussion, I emphatically assess that political parties in Uganda have been in abeyance for too long and have collectively lost their shine. Mao presides over the oldest political party in the country – the Democratic Party. His sobering recollection could, therefore, affirm that his own party’s values have faded and hard to recognise. As a seasoned lawyer and politician, Mao has a commanding knowledge and experience in party politics where he is held hostage to a turbulent party environment.  One challenge is that reinventing parties that are subsumed in a chronically repressive environment and yet strives to partake in a sham democracy willingly becomes a major contradiction.

Youths reading Mao’s article becomes doubtful if political parties in Uganda actually adhere to any core values or perform those roles, functions or responsibilities as Mao articulated. When I read the article, I struggled to delineate between Mao’s ideals and parties’ realities in the Ugandan political context.

The youthful Ugandans are acquainted with the abnormalities of parties and not their core values. Uganda has 29 registered political parties. Some are sold like pancakes to the highest bidders. Most are briefcase elements for pomp and defections. Those established and barely functioning parties are themselves war zones - places for quarrels, fights, and protracted tribal wars; or even where to rebrand for meal cards politics. Parties in opposition are known as the nexus of both physical and mental poverty.  There are parties in Uganda that have built reputations as the political uterus in which potential NRM cadres are conceived.

Ugandan Political Parties are treacherous and have become a reservoir of the politics of violent confrontations. The NRM regime has pulled out the gut material from all political parties and organizations rendering them clientele agencies. When Hon. Robert Kyagulanyi bought NUP, some people lamented that the People Power sophistication had ended. This is how people have strayed away from Parties.

Under Museveni, Parties are like bars - enclaves for political hotheads to cool off. Talk about flattening the political pressure curve! Party leaders are mostly listening post for the ruling regime, making it hard to trust any of them.

Mao needed to move beyond validating political parties and reinventing their relevance for future generations. Parties in Uganda have outgrown their usefulness. It is time for movements that are not legally bound to the repressive laws of the regime to take center stage. Parties have left spaces for robust social movements and various non-traditional formations to emerge. Ugandans should take those spaces to liberate the nation from impunity. Parties no longer command such ideological thrust and have alienated the majority of Ugandans from the democratic process. Parties are no longer repositories of trust and preferred engines for social transformation because they have not shown maturity or brought the desired change when all they do is fight for flagbearer position.

In the Ugandan context, no Political Party can survive in a political environment when it has no independent source of well managed and steady revenue. Paid party membership must have significantly declined over the decades.  Parties cannot contribute meaningfully to democracy when they are resource-constrained and operated on a non-democratic non-value basis. Thus, the sad realization about Uganda’s political parties is that they are prone to imperialism and elite class collaborations with foreign donors and exploiters.

End.